Carnival Row – Facta Non Verba

By: Dawn Inchaurregui-Miller

The fae begin the walk back from the docks utterly devastated. Philo (Orlando Bloom) stops and looks down at the blood of his friend covering his hands. He lets out a deep, chilling scream and falls to his knees. Vignette (Cara Delevingne) gives him a nod of understanding, realising his mind is set upon finding the sparas that murdered his friend.

Children play games in the Burgue but come to a stop, as do their parents when they see the fire and hear the explosions on the docks.

Ezra and Imogen’s neighbors Louisa Pembroke (Issy Stewart) and Leonid Pembroke (Ross Green) turn to go back to the safety of their homes when they see armed guards outside Ezra’s house. They decide to go and see what is happening, hoping for gossip on Imogen’s return.

The scene changes back to days before in Ragusa. The New Dawn attempt to fight back The Pact army that have attacked them during their celebrations. Agreus (David Gyasi), Ezra (Andrew Gower) and Imogen (Tamzin Merchant) stay low trying to avoid being shot, while making plans to get to their boat and escape when Ivor (Daniel Zappi) is shot dead in front of them.

They find themselves in a house trying to stay hidden with a member of The New Dawn who attempts to make Agreus go back for more supplies. They hear noises from above and a soldier drops through the ceiling and begins to fight with Agreus. As they fight The Pact soldier has what looks like a gun, but lifts it to himself and a syringe clicks out from it. He uses it to inject himself and stops moving. Agreus, unsure of what has happened, moves away from what he thinks is now a dead body, but it begins to change into a Marrok. Imogen passes him a gun and he shoots it before the Marrok has a chance to attack.

They hastily try to plan what to do next and Ezra insists they surrender to The Pact as they are Burguish allies and suggest they say Agreus is a manservant. Imogen and Agreus angrily dismiss this and decide to move inland. As they run out of the building hand in hand, Ezra pockets a handgun from a dead soldier.

They walk for miles, the sun now having risen is beating down on them and talk turns to finding a source of water. Ezra on the other hand intentionally begins to sow discord. He tells Agreus that his sister is a bitter, nasty woman that he doesn’t yet fully know. He blames her for his being unmarried, taunting aloud that she has such a bad reputation that the only man she could get was a puck.

They find a river and sit next to it. All three stand silent, which is broken up by Imogen apologising for what Agreus had to hear. She tells him she has changed and he begins to tell her of his life as a skipjack. He said it didn’t take him a second thought to come forward with information about missing workers as it gave him his freedom and brought him money. It became his profession and his riches grew from the blood of the fae he had captured. Ezra stands, laughs and tells them that he was wrong as they are clearly meant for one other.

They are back to walking with the sun on their backs when they hear men talking and horses not far off. They duck down and see that it is members of The Pact. Ezra wants to hand himself in and Agreus turns in time to see him stand and pull out a gun. Imogen is looking the other way when she says no as Argueus would be put to death. She turns and sees him already standing and they both quickly jump into action, pulling Ezra to the ground. Agreus has him pinned down by his whole body while Imogen covers his mouth. Her mood changes while looking into his eyes and she holds her other hand over his nose. She suffocates him with their eyes still locked as he becomes still. Agreus turns to them both after The Pact soldiers have left to see Imogen kneeling over his corpse.

They are back to walking again, only Imogen and Agreus left now, with the atmosphere having shifted. Agreus tries to talk comfortingly to her, saying it wasn’t her fault and that Ezra was dangerous. Imogen starts to become angry, insisting that he is just another man that wants to quiet and control her. She says she is tired of being looked after and treated as fragile. She only wants to belong to herself.

Their fight is interrupted by members of the The New Dawn. Kastor (George Georgiou) walks forward, telling them that he almost gave up looking but found Ezra and was then able to track them.

They are taken back to Raguna with their hands tied to a wagon that carries Ezra’s body, staring lifelessly back at them. The day turns to night and eventually as they grow closer, they walk through a sea of dead bodies. They are told to dump Ezra’s body amongst them so they awkwardly lift him from the carriage and drop him amongst the hundreds of others.

Leonora (Joanne Whalley) walks through from the side and talks of how she tried to re-educate the rich deserters who still believed themselves to be better than the community as a whole. They realize they were not people killed by The Pact. They were deserters, killed under Leonoras orders. She is disappointed by Imogen as she believed them to have much in common. It seems she intends to leave them there in the mud amongst the others, but that isn’t her plan. She wants them to go back to the Burgue using one of The Pacts airboats to deliver a message of peace, requesting the Burgue stop arming The Pact. When they arrive, armed soldiers line up either side of the walkway, protecting the parliamentary members that come to greet them.

Milworthy (Simon McBurney) Fletcher (Fraser James) and Winetrout (Brian Caspe) Stand together to hear what they have to say. They address Imogen who stands at the forefront and demands to speak with parliament. Mr. Fletcher brushes her “none sense” off, as their alliance is with The Pact. Imogen declares that as a burguish woman from a good family she is legally entitled to address the council in matters of National importance and claims these rights must be adhered to. Milworthy agrees with her as she is indeed correct according to their laws and so they agree to the meeting.

The episode now shifts back to how it was at the beginning with Agreus standing in the doorway of the spurnrose household. The neighbours ask again where either Ezra or Imogen are. Imogen walks forward into the doorway, carrying a new confidence about her and dressed in a way that takes them by surprise. That surprise is the overshadowed by the two of them now holding hands. When they leave, Agreus and Imogen apologize for taking each other’s hands, as they have clearly not made amends since the fight.

Philo walks slowly towards Berwicks body on the floor surrounded by officers. When Dombey (Jamie Harris) sees him, he runs up to him landing a punch to his face. He screams at him that he and Berwick trusted Philo, who let them down and now a good man is dead. Philo takes the hit and instead of arguing tells Dombey that they need to look for a man, as the sparas shapeshifter is male. He tells him they kill in a different way and have different teeth patterns on their wings. He screams what good is that, but Philo retorts that it is a start and turns to walk away. Dombey waits a moment before stopping him as he still needs his help. They hear a call from the other side of the docks and run towards it alongside the other officers. The bodies of soldiers are being laid side by side on the docks, with more being pulled out from the sea. They now all realise that hidden at the bottom of each boat was hundreds of soldiers on their way to take back Tirnanoc.

The faefolk walk disheartened back to the Row. Darius (Ariyon Bakare) runs to try to find Tourmaline (Karla Crome), who is also running to find him. As they hug Vignette passes them both, cuts her hands and uses her blood to write a message for the Black Raven to meet her. She turns to Tourmaline, places her hands on her shoulders and promises that she will still get her out of the Row and keep her safe.

Later on Kaine (Jay Ali) walks through an alley looking for Vignette. She flies in from the side and knocks him against the wall screaming at him. He tries to hold her still to explain the attacks on the boat but she continues screaming at him that it was their only way out. He shouts out no, as Vignette receives a hit to the back of the head, knocking her out cold.

She opens her eyes again, finding herself hanging from her arms in Boz Geidos’ (Stewart Scudamore) factory. The Black Raven have all been sitting waiting for her to wake, having bound her wings. They tell her of the soldiers hidden at the bottom of the boats ready to take back Tirnanoc and as they explain, her expression changes and she can’t believe she trusted the humans. They then tell her they had help. Leonora walks out from the shadows and approaches Vignette telling her the Black Ravens respect her and asks if she is ready to lead them.

Milworthy walks amongst the bodies of the soldiers, now covered with white sheets. Philo approaches him and asks if he knew they were there. He tells them yes and Philo becomes angry, but Milworthy explains they were going there either way in secret and tells him it was still the only way to get the fae back home. He and Philo wonder how if no one else knew about the soldiers, how did the Black Ravens. They both connect together the arrival of The New Dawn, the attacks on the ships by the Black Ravens and the sparas that also attacked alongside them. They realize they are working together not just to help the fae, but to begin a revolution.